West Wing Goes Nuclear

I have never seen or heard such a load of crap! This is my favorite show on television and I think the industry should file suit. The information coming from this episode may materially affect a major sector of our energy economy.

Hankins Yea, Haler Nay

HB 2661 roll call. One of our legislators votes for civil rights. The others?....Well

Washington East Opera

I just got home from a performance of the Barber of Seville. It was superbly done and a true joy. A mixture of excellent music and broad slap-stick that even kept the 5-year-old in the row in front of me enthralled. One of the singers teaches at a local middle school and her young students were out in force making sure she got her fair share of applause and whoops. Right here in River City no less.

DL Feedback

We had an enjoyable gathering last evening at the Tri-Cities Drinking Liberally session. More people showed up than before so the trend is in the right direction. We talked about Gore's speech and the state party chair race.

For those out there that may shy away from the bar scene, our DL group tends to talk much more than we drink. And now that bars are smoke-free my major disincentive has been removed. Note: to assure our welcome by our host we should probably buy more food if we aren't buying lots of drinks.

Chief Justice Roberts Misled Senator Wyden

This was Roberts back in August 2005.

Roberts told Wyden that he would look closely at the legislative history of federal laws and would be careful not to strip states of powers they traditionally have held -- such as regulating the practice of medicine, Wyden said.

"You don't get the impression from how he answered that he'd let somebody stretch a sweeping statute like the Controlled Substances Act," Wyden said. ...

People pay attention! Roberts floated into the Supreme Court. Now we know how much smoke he was blowing back then. Is there any reason to think Alito is less of a shill than Roberts? I predict that with an imperial presidency and a complicit Congress and Supreme Court, civil liberties in this country are headed for some dark years.

Let's Call the Whole Thing Off

Now that the Bush response to 9/11 has killed just about as many Americans as the original attack maybe it's time to go do something else. Keeping the war around to justify an imperial presidency just doesn't seem like a good idea to me.

Gore's Speech on Constitutional Issues

Great Stuff!

Clarity from Scalia

Just in case there was any remaining doubt, in the dissent to the SCOTUS support for Oregon's assisted suicide law Scalia makes the purpose of government clear.

"' However, the government has long been able to use its powers 'for the purpose of protecting public morality,' he said."

If you can't legislate morality what makes him think you can dictate it from the bench?

Drink Liberally

This evening, 5:30 at the Tuscany Lounge in the Richland Clarion Hotel, just north of Uptown. Munchies are on the house.

50 knots, no wake

A new M-shaped hull design captures the bow wave and turns into lift and trapped air allowing for much higher speeds, greater stability, and wake-less performance. Some pictures here, here, and here.

Giving Them Hell

Harry Reid. Ya gotta love him.

Alito Assessment

I like this assessment of Alito.

"He doesn't have a screw loose; what he has is a piece missing, conspicuously, radiantly, displaying the absence of any sense of, well, justice. Not a case came up for discussion in which he registered that one or another outcome was just wrong, outrageous to a sense of decency, or to him. He's on record in a memo as believing that to shoot an eighth grader, known not to be armed, who was trying to climb over a fence in escape, is a proper use of deadly force by a policeman. In a discussion of immigration cases that have been regularly occasioning inexcusable, vile, un-American heartbreak on people who missed obscure deadlines or violated arcane requirements, all he could say was that the courts get bad transcripts and it was hard to find translators for some of the plaintiffs, but that was a problem for Congress. It wasn't exactly Pilate washing his hands, but the man appears to be completely comfortable dealing with frightful social wrongs by moving the issue down the hall to another office. Sometimes the Court has to do this, but to Alito it's an especially good day's work, not a disappointment.

A smart, decent, small man. If the US Supreme Court is a good place for a man whose ability to prove 'not my job' is unparalleled, Alito should be confirmed. He will focus enormous rational power on issues not central to the cases before him, and solve problems peripheral to the work we need the court to do."

Toward a More Rational Drug Law

Top-flight economists show why the War on Drugs isn't working. In fact, it tends to make the problem worse.

"in the case of illegal goods like drugs -- where demand seems inelastic -- higher prices lead not to less use, but to an increase in total spending.

In the case of drugs, then, the authors argue that excise taxes and persuasive techniques -- such as advertising -- are far more effective uses of enforcement expenditures.

'This analysis ... helps us understand why the War on Drugs has been so difficult to win ... why efforts to reduce the supply of drugs leads to violence and greater power to street gangs and drug cartels,' conclude the authors. 'The answer lies in the basic theory of enforcement developed in this paper.'"

Aggressive enforcement simply increases the negative economic effect of drugs when it does not reduce demand. The moral to the story may be to keep the price low on addicting drugs and use other methods to reduce consumption. A low price would also put many criminal enterprises out of business.

Liberals are Drinking in the Tri-Cities

Three people attended the inaugural Drinking Liberally session at the Tuscany Lounge in the Richland Clarion Hotel last night. We had enough fun to try it again next Wednesday at 5:30. Barkeep says he will be serving free munchies.

Party Chair Candidate Forum

Saturday at the Carpenter's Hall in Pasco.

Hastings, Marianas, Abramoff refresher

From the June Tri-City Herald.

A hat tip to the Washblog. (need to get that one on my blogroll)

On the Proper Role of Government Lawyers

Well, Mr Bush? Which is it? Do administration lawyers advocate their clients case? This is Alito's story. Or do they provide unbiased legal direction? This is the White House story about the NSA warrantless spying. You can have one or the other but not both.

Amerika, Land of Equality

Of course the rich are just a wee bit more equal.

Doc Hastings visits Framatome.

He still doesn't understand that Social Security is more solvent than the rest of our government.

On inheritance tax he thinks that the big money should remain in the family. Those children were born with a silver spoon in their mouths and no one has the right to take it away.

Any questions about Congressional ethics are dealt with in secret. The public does not have a right to know.

The American healthcare system is the best thing since sliced bread. If people would just go ahead and die younger everyone's insurance costs would be much less. On the positive side he floated the idea that individuals should be entitled to the same tax break for insurance premiums that employers get. If you really want to save money on healthcare keep your foreign citizenship handy.

Prescription benefit is not really all that complicated. Just go to the various providers with your list of prescriptions and see who gives you the best deal. Now how many providers are there? God help you if you sign a contract and your health situation changes and you need different drugs. Tried to blame the complexity on government when the complexity is due to the drug companies who wrote the bill.

Legal immigration is so difficult it's no wonder we have so many illegals. Major sections of agriculture have always depended on migrant workers. In early days the migrant workers were citizens, now they are almost all aliens. Any immigration reform must have a workable guest worker provision because alien workers are an important part of our economy.

Yucca Mountain will be built eventually regardless of what Nevadans think.

He would like to replace the progressive income tax with an (un)FAIR tax. Essentially a sales tax at the national level. The only problem is the 16th amendment to the constitution.

No Alito please

From Robert Gordon:

"The argument that he was just saying whatever it was convenient for him to say in order to get a job doesn't sound too good coming from somebody who is now trying to get another job. There is something really slippery, or at least less than forthright, about his approach to his own record of actions and opinions."

If he was lying about being a mossback conservative why should we believe anything he says now? Simply he just seems to be too ethically challenged to serve on the any bench must less the nation's highest bench.